American Rapids, and above the entrance to the canal that was constructed more than forty years before to carry water from the Niagara river to factories located on the edge of the cliff, where the fall obtainable for turbines was as much as two hundred feet, though only from ninety to perhaps one hundred and twenty feet fall had been used to drive turbines. Mr. Thomas Evershed, when Chief Engineer of the State of New York, conceived the idea of locating turbines in wheel-pits sunk to a sufficient depth upon the level land above the rapids, where, under a head of sixty to one hundred feet, turbines could be operated by water carried to them through short surface canals, while the discharge from the turbines could be carried away by a tunnel serving as a tail race, this tunnel to proceed in a direct line under the city of Niagara Falls to the gorge below the falls. His scheme had been made the foundation of a charter granted to a company to construct the tunnel and such canals as might be needed for power and sewerage purposes, whereby the land on the river bank above the falls might be utilized as a manufacturing area, as at Lowell, Holyoke and other places where industries have prospered through the enterprise of the companies controlling the water privileges.

To carry out the Evershed plan involved the expenditure of very large sums of money for the tunnel and for surface canals. To effect the purpose, the Niagara Falls Power Company was organized in 1890. The Cataract Construction Company and other allied companies were started at the same time to execute the work, to improve the lands owned or controlled by those interested and to furnish transportation facilities to a large industrial district, where a uniform water power, without fear of low water or freshets, would be obtained. In the first conception of this water-power company, a central station was contemplated from which power might be transmitted to Buffalo and elsewhere, either by electricity or by some of the several modes of transmission of power already used to some advantage in Switzerland and elsewhere, where water power is abundant, coal costly and transmission for a few miles by wire rope or other means had been undertaken with marked

success.

In July, 1890, I was suddenly summoned to London to confer with Mr. Edward D. Adams, the President of the Cataract Construction Company, who was alive to the great advantage of longdistance transmission by electricity, his idea being that the central

ization of power and its transmission by electricity over the whole territory was feasible; hence he ordered work stopped until a careful examination could be made as to the state of the art of electricity in comparison with other modes of transmission.

To obtain reliable information on this important subject, the Niagara Falls International Commission was organized in July, 1890, with Lord Kelvin as Chairman; Prof. Wm. C. Unwin, Dean of the South Kensington Technical School, as Secretary; Prof. E. Mascart, of Paris, as representative of France, the birthplace of the modern turbine water-wheel; Col. T. Turrettini, Mayor of the City of Geneva, an engineer of great note, as representative of Switzerland, and as the engineer of the works at Geneva where power was being transmitted by water under high head; and I was appointed the representative of the United States and of the company for which the information was to be collected. By and through the work of this Commission, the opinion of engineers and engineering companies was obtained as to the best way of developing the power on the land of the company, under conditions laid down by the American company, also the utilization by transmission of the power so developed. A sum of money was paid to each competitor to cover the cost of reports, while premiums were offered to those who should present feasible schemes that could be immediately made use of for either or both of the two parts of the scheme-first, the generation of power, and, second, its transmission.

The information so gained represented the accumulated knowledge of men who could speak knowingly as to the state of the art on both of these subjects at that time. It was well worth its cost, but no perfect scheme, ready for immediate adoption and worthy of the highest premium, was presented. The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, of Pittsburg, already interested in utilizing the alternating-current system for lighting and power purposes, having previously spent enormous sums of money to develop the alternating-current motors, generally known as the Tesla system, refused to compete on the ground that what would be offered in 1890 and 1891 could not possibly be what they might be able to submit in 1893; nor could any one suggest what would meet all the conditions which might arise during the development of the hydraulic part of their enterprise on a scale so much larger

than ever before undertaken. This non-competing company, however, a few years after executed much of the work required.

A majority of the Commissioners favored the transmission by direct current, but as they were not asked to express an opinion in that direction, there was no report made as to the character of the electric current if electrical transmission should be decided upon; but a unanimous opinion was given as to the advantage of a unit of 5000 horse power for each turbine in the power house, working under a head of not over 140 feet fall, at a speed of 250 revolutions per minute, which was feasible with turbines that could be made of high efficiency.

The speed recommended was thought to be what would be acceptable to makers of dynamos, whether for alternate or direct current. It is noteworthy, as indicative of the state of the art in 1891, that out of many electrical schemes proposed all but two were based on the generation of the direct current, with the consensus of opinion in favor of the gramme ring as the type of armature.

While waiting for the reports of competing engineers to come in, between July of 1890 and the first of January, 1891, I had time to visit Italy, France, Switzerland and England, where I collected information as to the efficiency of the several modes of transmitting power at that time in vogue. I could find but one example in France of power for factory purposes transmitted by direct current, in which case a turbine was located in a rugged mountainous district, quite inaccessible in winter. The water-wheel, of perhaps 200 horse power, drove a direct-current dynamo, from which the current was conveyed by overhead conductors to a direct-current motor in a paper-mill, in a small town, a distance of five miles. This paper-mill had been operated without profit by steam, but was said to be profitable under the new conditions. The machinery in this case was started and stopped at the turbine by means of telephone communication from the mill to the men in charge at the water power. I visited many interesting plants for the transmission of power by water under pressure and by compressed air, and saw the most important electrical developments for lighting purposes, some by the alternate current, but most by the use of the direct

current.

In Paris I made a careful examination of the Popp system of compressed air with great interest, on account of the highly favorable reports that had reached me and the claims as to efficiency

and economy made by the projector. He even went so far as to say that in case of transmitting power from a central station to an outlying electric light plant he would use compressed air for the purpose, using air to drive the engines connected to the dynamos at the lighting stations, instead of transmitting electricity ready for immediate use. Among his various plans of using compressed air, besides operating air motors, elevators and the like, he had published a long list of uses to which it was applicable; he also submitted to the Government his cold storage scheme. In the event of foreign invasion and the investment of Paris, when local industries might be stopped, he stated that by using the compressed air from part of his compressing plant to drive the engines that operated the compressors of the other part, and utilizing the exhaust from these air-driven compressors in the Government storehouses, he could thus lower their temperature to the required degree, on the principle of refrigeration by rarefaction of air after having exerted force, as discussed by Prof. Henry on March 2, 1825, and as afterward toward 1850 used for the artificial production of ice.

The alternate-current lighting plant of Deptford, London, established in 1889, was predicated on the possible generation of electricity in large units of 10,000 volts pressure. I spent much time in watching this experiment, which was in 1891 far from meeting the expectations of its promoters. The 10,000 horsepower engines and direct connected 10,000 horse-power dynamos were never finished.

In Rome I found the most promising scheme under way to utilize the water power at Tivoli to generate a single-phase, alternate current, to be transmitted a distance of twenty-five miles to the gates of Rome by overhead cables, at a pressure of about 5000 volts, with perhaps twelve per cent. loss in transmission. The Roman plant was interesting, as in it the question of rate of alternation per second had been considered, and Ganz & Co., of Budapest, had recommended the lowest periodicity, forty-two full alternations per second, as adapted to arc and incandescent lights on the same feeders. If the rate of alternation per second be less than fortytwo full periods arc lights will pulsate, while in the case of incandescent lights by alternating current the rate of alternation may be carried as low as twenty per second, depending upon the thickness of the filament, with no perceptible effect on my eyes. But in common practice seventy-two full periods per second has been

adopted by electric lighting companies, as thereby the local transformers that are used to reduce, from street conductors under a pressure of 2000 volts to 100 volts in houses, are small and inexpensive; much more so than if similar machines were wound for as low a periodicity as forty-two per second. This question of period or rate of alternation per second has since come to be recognized as an important consideration in the transmission of electric energy for power purposes, and bears directly on the question of efficiency, convenience and economy in the conduct of the power-house equipment at Niagara Falls. There is so much of interest that may be said on this subject that I am loath to leave it to speak of what resulted from the study of the problems between 1890 and 1893, when in 1893 the installation of hydraulic machinery was to be begun, and an electric system adopted and put in practice ready for operation. In 1895 but one single tenant, the Niagara Falls Paper Company, now using over 7200 horse power from the surface canal of the company, was and still is the only example we have of a factory controlling its own water power directly connected to its machinery, as at Lowell and elsewhere.

During the year 1893 all idea of extending the tunnel beyond a proposed power house, and all extension of surface canal with. branches to supply local factories, was given up in favor of electrical generation and transmission thereof to the users in such form as to be acceptable to the industries established on the land of the company. In the year 1893, while the greatest pressure was being exerted to induce the Cataract Construction Company to adopt the directcurrent system, Mr. Edward D. Adams and the other officers of the company had before them a diagrammatic plan showing a central station for the generation of alternate-current electricity, from which conductors were figured as leading to electric furnaces, to apparatus that was capable of converting the alternate current into direct current, either by synchronous motors driving direct-current dynamos or by step-down or step-up transformers and rotary transformers that accomplished the same end. Lighting by arc and incandescent lamps was provided for, and trolley lines were designated as in operation, while an overhead pole line was figured as transmitting the energy to Buffalo or elsewhere, at any required pressure. Nothing could be more convincing than this diagram to show the elasticity of the alternate current, which was confirmed by a practical exhibition offered at Pittsburg by the Westinghouse